09/02/2026
I know by now you all know that our Fall Harvest Hangout is a benefit for Marshall Gotter, but there are many that really don't know Marshall personally, so I asked his family to tell us a little about him and the cancer journey he has been on. His Aunt Amanda wrote this - Thank you Amanda for writing this story that is so obviously filled with LOTS of LOVE! Also want to ask if you have anytime available that day and would like to volunteer we are still looking to fill spots at our admission tables. Any help would be greatly appreciated!! I will again share the link to sign up. So here is Marshall's Story!
If you know Marshall, you know he loves people.
He loves his family, his friends, his school and his community. He is social, curious, kind, honest and always willing to help. He loves baseball, karate and being involved. And like most 11-year-old boys, he would much rather be off doing the things he loves than sitting in a hospital room.
Over the past several months, though, hospital rooms have become a much bigger part of Marshall’s life than anyone ever imagined.
Marshall’s journey began earlier this year after a family trip to watch his cousin wrestle at sectionals. When they got home, Marshall mentioned that his leg hurt.
There was no reason at first to believe it was anything serious. He had experienced growing pains before. Maybe he had twisted it. Tylenol, some rest, and off to bed he went.
A few nights later, he woke his mom because it hurt again.
The pain improved with ibuprofen, but his mom couldn’t completely shake the feeling that something wasn’t right. After returning from the state wrestling tournament a few days later, she decided she wanted it checked.
At 4:30 that Monday afternoon, she took Marshall to the clinic.
An X-ray was taken.
And suddenly, everything changed.
What his family thought might be growing pains or a minor injury appeared to be cancer.
And then they had to go home.
There was no diagnosis yet. No treatment plan. No doctor who could tell them exactly what came next. Just a few hours earlier, this had been a trip to the clinic because Marshall’s leg hurt. Now his parents were walking back into their home carrying the possibility that their 11-year-old son had cancer.
And somehow, in the middle of trying to understand those words themselves, they still had to be Mom and Dad.
They had to decide what to tell Marshall.
So they told him what they knew: there was a bad spot in the bone in his leg, and they needed to find doctors who could tell them what it was and how to make it better.
Those doctors weren’t close to home. The specialized care Marshall needed wasn’t available locally. The nearest team equipped to care for him was in Madison, nearly three hours away.
They couldn’t have known it then, but that three-hour drive would soon become one they would know all too well.
Tests, scans and a biopsy followed. Eventually, the thing that had started with a little boy saying his leg hurt had a name:
Ewing sarcoma.
Marshall had a large tumor in his left femur, just above his knee, with cancer involving nearby lymph nodes.
Everything moved quickly. Marshall had a port placed and began chemotherapy in March. Treatment meant traveling to Madison week after week—sometimes for a day, sometimes for several days at a time.
Chemotherapy has brought unexpected hospital stays for fevers, antibiotics, waiting for blood counts to recover, and multiple blood and platelet transfusions.
Before long, life began revolving around medications, scans, appointments, blood counts and the next trip to Madison.
But amid all of that came something everyone desperately needed to hear:
The treatment was working.
After approximately 12 weeks of chemotherapy, it was time to face the next enormous hurdle—removing the cancer from Marshall’s leg.
His family was given choices no parent ever imagined having to make for their child.
Ultimately, they chose rotationplasty—a rare and complex form of amputation. The portion of Marshall’s leg containing cancer, including his knee, would be removed. His lower leg would then be rotated and reattached, allowing his ankle to eventually function as a knee joint inside a prosthetic leg.
For Marshall, rotationplasty offered the possibility of strong function and the chance to return to many of the things he loves
On June 30, Marshall underwent his rotationplasty.
Everyone hoped they had reached a turning point.
Instead, another battle began.
Marshall’s surgical wounds weren’t healing as they should. He endured three additional debridements, multiple wound VACs, additional closure procedures and skin grafting. Part of the graft failed, and dressing changes became a twice-daily part of life.
His family found themselves caught in an impossible tug-of-war:
Marshall’s leg needed time without chemotherapy to heal.
Marshall’s cancer couldn’t wait indefinitely for chemotherapy.
Eventually, Marshall had to return to chemotherapy even though his wound was still healing.
By the end of August, he was approximately four weeks into another 22 weeks of treatment. He attends physical therapy twice a week, and eventually he will travel to Rochester to be fitted for a prosthetic leg and begin learning to walk in an entirely new way.
There is still a long road ahead.
But everything Marshall has endured still doesn’t really explain Marshall.
Marshall wants to understand what is happening to him. He listens during rounds, asks questions and takes part in conversations about his care. He knows his medications, has gotten to know people throughout the hospital and has become remarkably in tune with his own body.
He rarely complains. He keeps going.
And through all of this, Marshall has been watching the people he trusts most—especially his mom.
When things are scary, Marshall has said:
“If my mom’s not scared, I’m not scared.”
When Marshall doesn’t know whether he should be afraid, he looks to his mom. If she believes they are going to be okay, he believes it, too—even though he may not always see the fear and worry his parents carry quietly for him.
And when people ask Marshall himself if he is scared, his answer is simple:
“It’s okay. God has a plan for me.”
He trusts his mom. He trusts that there is a plan.
And then he keeps going.
Cancer has taken a lot of ordinary childhood away from Marshall this year. He misses his friends, his family when he is away, school and simply getting to be around other kids.
But he has also been surrounded by his family, friends, school, church and community, along with the people he has met through his treatment in Madison.
Marshall has always loved everybody.
Now he is getting to see just how many people love him back.
And Marshall is still looking ahead.
He is excited about getting his prosthetic. He wants to learn to walk with it. He wants to get back to karate and play baseball again. He is still thinking about the things he wants to do and the life waiting for him beyond treatment.
He is still making plans.
His family is making plans, too. Their home continues to need changes to make everyday life safer and more accessible while Marshall uses his wheelchair. There will be continued travel for chemotherapy, appointments, rehabilitation and eventually prosthetic care in Rochester. There will be expenses they can anticipate and, as this journey has already taught them, many they cannot.
That is why this benefit means so much.
We can’t take Marshall’s cancer away. We can’t sit through chemotherapy for him, heal his wound, do his physical therapy or learn to walk on his prosthetic for him.
Marshall has to do those things.
But we can make sure he and his family don’t have to carry everything else alone.
We can help lighten the burden of travel, time away from home, rehabilitation, accessibility needs, prosthetic care and the unexpected expenses that come with having a child fighting cancer.
More importantly, we can remind an 11-year-old boy who has spent his life loving the people around him that his community is standing right here, loving him back.
When Marshall’s family talks about his future, they see him getting back to karate. They see him playing baseball. They see him walking on his prosthetic. They see him getting back to living his life.
Marshall’s story is still being written. There are more treatments ahead, more healing to do and an entirely new way of walking to learn.
But the most important parts of Marshall haven’t changed.
He still loves deeply. He still finds reasons to smile. He still looks ahead.
Cancer has changed his days. It has changed his body. It has changed what childhood looks like for him right now.
But it has never changed the heart of who he is.
And after everything cancer has taken, challenged and changed, somehow, through it all, Marshall has remained perfectly Marshall.
